198 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



the gloomy evergreens we notice the Greenfinches in 

 flocks performing various wheeling motions in the air, 

 and finally settle down to repose. The holly is preferred 

 to any other shrub, and the number which nightly re- 

 pair to its shelter is astonishing. Numbers of other 

 birds roost with them, as Sparrows, Chaffinches, and 

 Thrushes, and it is a sight worth seeing to notice their 

 actions both at nightfall and when the sun again sends 

 them to the neighbouring fields for sustenance. 



The Finches are, in Nature's economy, entrusted with 

 the task of keeping the weeds in subjection, and the 

 Greenfinch is probably one of the most useful, for its 

 food is found to consist for the greater part of seeds 

 most hurtful to the works of man. The charlock that 

 so often chokes his cereal crops is partly kept in 

 bounds by the vigilant Greenfinch, who prefers its tiny 

 seeds before the golden grain. The dock, whose rank 

 vegetation would, if allowed to cast all its seeds, spread 

 barrenness around, is also one of his storehouses, and the. 

 rank grasses, at their seeding time, are his chief support. 



There is another bird to which I would give a passing 

 notice ere the Finches are bade adieu, and that is the 

 gay and elegant little Goldfinch. Next to that animated 

 gem the refulgent Kingfisher, the Goldfinch is thought 

 by many persons to be the bird standing highest in the 

 scale of beauty. But then their own feelings may have 

 biased them in this particular, for does not the Stone- 

 chat, the Gold Crest, and the Chaffinch, the Magpie and 

 the Starling, exhibit charms so rich and varied, that in 

 the contest for beauty it is difficult to say which carries 

 off the palm ? 



The Goldfinch with me, save in the breeding season, 

 is a wanderer, only appearing at uncertain intervals, and 

 remaining until the seeds which tempt his sojourn are 



